“Did you really need to threaten to castrate that kid?” Nero winced as some antiseptic was placed gingerly on a cut above his eye…

He was probably lucky that a few cuts and bruises were all he got from going off against a three Star Sage… but that kid was full of crap as far as Nero was concerned, being xenophobic to normal humans like Nero…

“Probably not, but I wasn’t going to just accept him trying to bully me just because I can’t throw fireballs at his face.” Nero responded back to Jones who sighed, leaving Rick laughing in the background.

“Careful how you say things like that kid, talking about balls to the face is a pretty easy way to get laughed at.” Nero realized what Rick was saying and had a snort of laughter before wincing as Jones applying the antiseptic once more.

“Rick, your humour is kind of sub-par. And kid, ignoring that fireball comment, you’re right, you can’t just accept people walking over you, but that doesn’t mean you should be an idiot about it…” Jones paused for a moment, lifting a pair of glasses for Nero to grab.

Nero had quite a few spares due to his weird luck.

“Anyway, I’m pretty sure that Norman kid will respect you a bit now, even if he’s a bit misguided.” Jones had issue with the attitude of that kid, but he couldn’t really do anything about it…

They were still in Valour Academy, mostly due to the fact that the King of Ice, Yule Argos, was out of the area for some reason…

So after meeting Norman, a week had gone by until Nero had finally snapped and punched the much stronger teen.

The result was obvious, Nero had done just about nothing and Norman hit Nero a few times before Rick and Jones hinted at annoyance if Norman would continue.

But apparently the King would be around today, hence why they were busy making sure Nero was alright before getting to the school.

Nero once more realized how weird Sages were when there were no real complaints about Norman hitting him other than the fact that it was continuing after the first hit.

It was probably an example of the Sage belief that Headmaster Oren spoke about with Nero, might makes right, meaning that Norman could do as he pleased until a stronger Sage stopped him.

There were other rules of course, thanks to the ten Kings enforcing morals and basic decency in weaker Sages…

But apparently before Kings were around Sages did as they pleased without consequence, the only reason Sages were a bit more tolerable now was because the Kings said that power comes with a responsibility to use that power correctly.

It also explained why older humans were still afraid of Sages, having lived through the Fae Wars or knowing older family members who were treated horribly by Sages…

Nero could even recall hearing a few horror stories about Sages doing awful things to an extreme extent, such as one Sage who found a town, killed every male in the town and then…

Well, the implication was severe already. By the time the Sage was killed by a passing King of Darkness, many of the women in the town were pregnant or dead…

Those children, who had a chance of becoming a Sage, after being so hurt by one?

It was understandable that many children either didn’t make it out of the womb or were abandoned as soon as they could be.

Nero shook his head after realizing that they had already ended up in front of Valour during his horrible thoughts.

Sages were people who operated by strange rules, but at least they were better now… it could have been a lot worse.

And now, standing in front of the door to Yule Argos’ office, Nero gulped as he followed Rick and Jones in.

Sitting at the desk was the owner of the office, Yule Argos, with extremely pale short blonde hair, bordering on white, and a stern look, his smile seemed a bit out of place.

“Ah, Rick, Jones, good to see you two again… I see you picked up a kid while I was looking away, finally decided to adopt?” Nero blinked and then blushed at realizing that Rick and Jones might not just be friends.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Hey, we’re not like that. Rick, stop making kissy faces in my direction before I shoot you.” Jones growled out leaving Rick laughing as he patted Nero’s head lightly.

“Nah uncle Yule, this kid’s named Nero, he’s a student who was scheduled to visit you at some point for a paper on ‘the mind of a Sage’ or something like that.” Nero blinked for a moment.

Rick addressed the King of Ice quite familiarly… and then Nero recalled his title as ‘Prince of Lightning’… maybe Rick was the son of the King of Lightning?

“Oh, yes, I remember that… we can either talk now, or you can wait outside while I discuss with these two. Either way, you aren’t going to be in the room while we talk.” Nero nodded at that, understanding the need for secrecy in regards to some things.

“I understand sir, I’ll wait outside.” Nero turned and walked to the door, pausing for a moment.

“Sir, one of your students, Norman, he’s… quite rude. But strong.” Nero admitted as he went out of the room.

“Interesting kid.” Yule said with a smirk looking at the two bounty-hunting Sages.

“Sure is, he’s got weird luck… I’d almost call it Diversity if it weren’t for the fact that I know he isn’t a Sage.” Yule blinked at that before sighing and then shrugging.

“I’ll hear about it from the kid himself. Ignoring that for the moment, let’s talk about bigger things… Rick, we need you to go talk to the Fae.” Rick’s eyes hardened at those words, Jones at his side looking to his partner with a sigh.

“What happened now, an Incursion get too bad, some Fae being brought to us for punishment, what?” Jones offered, noting that Rick didn’t quite feel like joking around at the moment.

Rick didn’t hate the Fae, despite the antagonistic relationship between the Fae and humans, but he couldn’t say being told to visit them made him happy.

“None of that… the Fae say that they want to talk about a goodwill gathering.” The statement was a shock to both of the bounty hunters, leaving Rick finally capable of speech.

“What? A goodwill gathering? From the Fae? What’s next, is it going to rain marshmallows, the land and sea will swap places and maybe the Elementals will decide to host a hula-hoop party?” Rick’s sarcasm was met with a sigh instead of a complaint.

“First of all, yes, they actually said goodwill gathering, they want to try and make peace for some reason, we already had an agreement to not go back to a state of war, but peace is very different from saying that we’re going to ignore each other.” Rick and Jones both nodded at Yule’s words.

“Secondly, don’t go saying things like that, you never know what strange Diversities are out there. I know for a fact that there is a person whose Diversity turns the surrounding areas into something straight out of a sweet shop, so marshmallow rain might not be too farfetched.” Ah, Rick and Jones nodded, they both actually knew who Yule was talking about, having forgotten about that oddly powerful Sage.

“Though I do doubt that Elementals will ever be nice to us. They tolerate the rest of existence but I really doubt they’d ever be nice to anyone.” Rick and Jones both scratched their heads at the chastisement, knowing better than to joke about Elementals…

Scary things they were, even the nice ones had a scary side to them, and Rick had only met one, luckily managing to leave with the unconscious Jones alive.

“Okay, okay, so the Fae actually want peace for some reason… do we know why?” Jones asked, getting a shrug from the King of Ice.

“No clue, that’s part of why we’re sending you Rick, you are considered a diplomat between our two races after all.” Rick sighed at that, wishing that his own father hadn’t volunteered him that one time.

The Fae had humans they liked and humans they hated, and Rick was well appreciated by the majority of the Fae, though the Elves thought he was a bit too playful, the rest of them respected him, especially the Sprites due to his Element.

“So I’m to agree to the goodwill gathering, after finding out why they suddenly decided to play nice with humanity?” Yule nodded at Rick’s words, Rick sighing before shrugging.

“Sure, I’ll go, if it wasn’t me you probably would have sent one of the other diplomats, like wind-tamer.” The nickname brought a laugh from all three Sages in the room, thinking to the husband of the King of Wind.

That nickname brought a scowl from Jonathan and a blush from Rabia every time.

Unfortunately for the King of Wind she ended up with the nickname ‘cradle snatcher’ which understandably resulted in her beating the crap out of Yule and Donovan who started the joke.

“Exactly, plus you have a higher chance of survival compared to most of the other diplomats…” Yule slowed down his conversation, taking a deep breath before slowly letting out some air.

“Listen you two, this is a really important mission. If we can actually achieve peace with the Fae, this will be huge. While I still don’t like them much, I acknowledge that we’d be better served working together, especially considering we think there’s some third party…” Yule added, getting surprised looks from the two other Sages in the room.

“Third party? I take it you aren’t talking about the Mystic Beasts, considering that most of the Elder Beasts leave us alone thanks to the Elementals.” The Elder Beasts were the ten Star Mystic Beasts, the only beings they wholeheartedly obeyed were the Elementals.

“No. Someone, something, some group, we aren’t sure, but somehow there are Dungeons being summoned by this third party… it is currently somewhere in Europe right now, having first been sighted around Africa.” That got a glance between Rick and Jones.

“That’s worrying, something capable of making Dungeons appear… that reminds us of that weird incident where a Dungeon Overflowed while we were moving past it.” It was the first Yule heard of this but they all acknowledged it.

Things in the world were changing, becoming even stranger and more dangerous than before…

And outside the door, Nero was just hoping he’d be let into the room soon, it was boring outside.